by Jeffrey Insko | Nov 26, 2020 |
Took a morning run with my dog Murphy today on the land of the Potawatomi now called northwest Indiana and found myself thinking how grateful I am for all of the water protectors and land defenders and fire keepers out there, all the pipeline fighters and safety advocates, the climate activists and the keep-it-in-the-grounders, the disgruntled landowners and outraged citizen activists, the passionate young and the resilient old, the nature lovers and the lovers of the Great Lakes, the birders and the wildlife conservationists, the tree huggers and hippies and greens and enviros, the lefties, socialists, commies, and EJ- and SJ- and eco-warriors, the environmental attorneys and the environmental humanists, the long-sighted policy makers and the direct action activists– all the people undeterred by the unimaginative naysayers saying what can’t be done, the people working instead to ensure a habitable planet for the future and trying to envision and build a more just world devoted to the collective, mutual, interconnected flourishing of all human and nonhuman life. I see you. I give you my thanks.
by Jeffrey Insko | Nov 13, 2020 |
By now, you’ve probably heard the day’s amazing news: Governor Whitmer has notified Enbridge that the state is revoking its easement to operate Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac (coverage here and here and here) This is a rare act of remarkable courage on the part of a strong, far-sighted governor.
And as always, I try to read up on the details so you don’t have to. I am happy to report that AG Nessel’s filing on behalf of Governor Whitmer seeking injunctive relief for the state’s notice to revoke the Line 5 easement is absolutely devastating. Hastily composed, here are some highlights:
The state revokes the easement on two grounds. First, for violating the public trust. And secondly, for violations of the easement’s “due care” clause. The latter is the more powerful charge in my opinion. Its enumerations are scathing.
- The complaint states that “has persistently and incurably violated its due-care and specific compliance obligations under the Easement.” For instance, the easement stipulates pipeline supports every 75 feet. Yet “for virtually the entire life of the Easement, Enbridge disregarded its obligation to comply with the 75′ pipe span requirement, and even failed to take corrective action when pipe spans exceeded 200′ in length.” When it comes to supports, the AG says, Enbridge has “exhibited an astonishing lack of candor and indifference to its due-care obligations under the Easement.”
- The easement also requires Enbridge to maintain protective coating on the pipeline. Yet, “by failing to undertake a detailed examination of the condition of the pipeline coating/wrap despite being on notice of the need to do so for 13-14 years…..evidences a pattern of indifference to, and violation of, the conditions of” the easement
- The easement also has specific requirements regarding the curvature of the pipeline. But “Enbridge ignored the pipeline curvature mandate of… the Easement, perhaps from the very beginning… Noncompliance with the curvature condition continues today and remains uncorrected.
- The bottom line is a version of something I’ve been saying about Enbridge in various contexts for many years: “There is nothing Enbridge can do to change its past behavior and callous disregard for its duties under the Easement, and its breaches of the Easement’s terms and conditions cannot be corrected or otherwise cured.”
Lastly, I don’t want to neglect entirely the public trust argument, which is also strong. The AG notes that the state has an obligation to protect the public trust, including the Great Lakes. However, the complaint states “Recent events have made clear that continued operation of [Line 5] cannot be reconciled with the State’s duty to protect public trust uses of the Lakes from potential impairment or destruction… transporting millions of gallons of petroleum products…..each day through two 67-year-old·pipelines that lie exposed in the Straits… presents an extraordinary, unreasonable threat to public rights b/c of the very real risk of further anchor strikes… and the foreseeable, catastrophic effects if an oil spill occurs at the Straits.”
As far as I know, Enbridge has yet to respond publicly. I’ll be sure to provide more summary and analysis as this matter unfolds. For now, we should feel really great about the state’s strong executive leadership. Thank you, Governor Whitmer. And congratulations to all the amazing individual and groups who have worked so tirelessly for so long to get us to this point!
by Jeffrey Insko | Oct 23, 2020 |
Last night at their Virtual Community Meeting Enbridge, once again, misinformed the public. Now, perhaps you find that as unsurprising as the rising and the setting of the sun– and that sort of response is justifiable. But it’s important not to accept this as a natural phenomenon; it’s important not to normalize Enbridge’s persistent failure simply to tell the truth. So let me explain what happened and then I will explain why it matters.
After a boilerplate presentation, Enbridge accepted questions from attendees. At one point, a questioner asked why Enbridge misrepresents their safety to protocols in the media to appease the public. But this was not precisely the question the Enbridge moderator asked. Instead, despite the questioner’s request that the question be read just as it was phrased (I know this because the questioner, who was not me, happens to be a friend of mine), the moderator re-worded it into a more anodyne question about Enbridge’s safety systems. That’s bad enough.
But the response to the question was even worse. (And here let me say that I could name the Enbridge rep who answered this question but instead I’m just going to say “Enbridge” because this issue of not telling the truth is not an individual problem. It’s systemic; it is, in fact, endemic to the way Enbridge communicates with the public). At any rate, in response to this question, Enbridge offered up some familiar platitudes about how the 2010 spill had forever changed them. Then, as an example of how they’ve changed, Enbridge said they have instituted a 10-minute restriction: a rule that says if they can’t identify and resolve a problem with a pipeline for which they’ve received a warning within ten minutes, they will shut the line down until the problem is resolved. Enbridge added, explicitly, that they did not have a 10-minute restriction in place in 2010.
But this is patently false! Enbridge most certainly had a ten minute restriction in place in 2010. In fact, what makes this falsehood particularly striking is that the ten minute rule was a major point of discussion in the NTSB report outlining Enbridge’s failures in 2010. The NTSB cited that rule as of the prime examples of Enbridge’s “culture of deviance” from their own safety protocols and systems. In addition, the ten minute rule wasn’t even new then. It had already been in place for almost 20 years, instituted in 1991 after another Enbridge oil spill in Minnesota. I wrote about this at length eight years ago as an illustration of how Enbridge does not change, does not learn from their mistakes. You can check it out here.
So just let this sink in: in response to a question about misrepresenting their safety protocols, Enbridge misrepresented their safety protocols.
Now, maybe you’re thinking this isn’t such a big deal. Maybe you’re thinking that this falsehood is relatively inconsequential compared, say, to the time the Enbridge CEO failed to tell the truth about the type of oil that spilled into Talmadge Creek, or the time Enbridge lied to the EPA, or the time Enbridge pretended like the spill in Marshall didn’t happen when it happened, or the time Enbridge simply made disparaging things up about a concerned Canadian citizen, or the time Enbridge made the Mississippi River disappear in Minnesota, or the time Enbridge failed to disclose important information about protective coating on Line 5 to Michigan state officials, or… any number of other examples I could cite. But the existence of all these other examples is one very important reason why this one matters so very much. Nor is that all. Consider:
- The reason Enbridge even scheduled this week’s Virtual Community Meetings in the first place was to comply with the terms of the Consent Decree they reached with the Department of Justice as a settlement for the 2010 spill. That stipulation exists because the NTSB found Enbridge’s community awareness efforts inadequate, a fact that contributed to the magnitude of the spill. So these meeting are meant to help correct that inadequacy. But if what’s happening at those meetings is the spread of misinformation, one could plausibly argue that Enbridge hasn’t really fulfilled its obligation under the terms of the agreement. After all, it is surely not the case that the DoJ just wanted Enbridge to hold meetings, regardless of the accuracy of the information presented at those meetings, right?
- In fairness, it may well be the case that this piece of misinformation was simply an error (though it was definitely NOT an example of misspeaking; that much was clear). Maybe this particular representative from Enbridge simply doesn’t know the history of the ten minute rule. Maybe this person doesn’t have a strong grasp of Enbridge’s safety protocols before or since the 2010 spill. But if that’s the case, shouldn’t that person be disqualified from talking about it? If Enbridge wants to inform the public accurately, shouldn’t they send a representative who actually knows these things? Or shouldn’t Enbridge simply provide better training for the people they send out to interface with the public? The fact that they don’t does not engender confidence about their corporate systems and protocols.
- This is a pattern of behavior. It just can’t be stated enough: this is not an isolated example (see examples above), this is a decade-long pattern of behavior, one that almost defies explanation. But the inescapable fact is that Enbridge simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth, even when like last night, there’s not really even much to be gained from spreading misinformation.
- Finally, the fact that Enbridge cannot be trusted to tell the truth has enormous consequences. At this moment, Enbridge is seeking approval in multiple states for massive new infrastructure projects: Line 3 in Minnesota and Line 5 here in Michigan, most notably. And to advance those interests, Enbridge is also involved in massive public relations and lobbying efforts to persuade members of the public and elected officials to support their projects. But why would anyone– how can anyone– believe their rosy assurances? How can public agencies be assured that Enbridge is taking part in regulatory proceedings in good faith? How can the public have confidence in those proceedings when the party at the center of them is so habitually dishonest? How can anyone possibly accept that Enbridge respects tribal sovereignty in Wisconsin or cares at all about safeguarding waterways in Minnesota or that they can build a concrete tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan in just three years?
So, sure, maybe in the context of one short, sparsely attended online community meeting last night’s falsehood doesn’t seem like much. But in this broader context, as part of Enbridge’s persistent, abiding, ongoing pattern of dissembling, withholding, spreading misinformation, and prevarication, I think it’s of tremendous importance. How much longer are state officials and credulous members of the public going to shrug their shoulders, dismiss, ignore, or explain away Enbridge’s untrustworthy conduct?
by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 12, 2020 |
Look, I realize that nobody likes the guy who says “I told you so”– especially when he tells you he told you so repeatedly. It’s annoying for sure. I don’t even like that guy. And yet, I am here this morning to say I told you so.
You see, just yesterday, Enbridge made some new filings with the Michigan Public Service Commission in the Line 5 case. Specifically, Enbridge is urging the MPSC to reject petitions to intervene filed by environmental groups, tribes, and Attorney General Dana Nessel. I’ll spare you most of the abstruse legal argumentation. Suffice it to say that there are particular rules and standards for allowing legal interventions into these proceedings and Enbridge’s crafty lawyers, doing what crafty lawyers do, are mining those rules and standards to find ways to eject certain groups from participating in the proceedings or to limit how they might participate– that is, limit what kinds of questions they’re allowed to raise. So, really, you only need to know one thing about Enbridge’s argument and that is when they say this:
The actual issue in this case is narrow.
There you have it. That’s it. What Enbridge wants– what Enbridge desperately needs– is for the issue in the Line 5 case before the MPSC to be as narrow as possible. They want to set aside or remove all sorts of questions from consideration. The narrower the scope of the proceedings, the better it is for Enbridge. So their objections to the petitions to intervene essentially boil down to the fact that Enbridge wants the Commission to rule that groups like FLOW and the National Wildlife Federation and the Bay Mills Indian Community and the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa and Indians and others are trying to broaden the scope of the proceedings in ways that are disadvantageous to Enbridge’s interests.
Of course, Enbridge doesn’t put it quite that way. Instead, they try to play a trick that has worked for them in the past. And here is where I have to say I told you so. Because, you see, way back in 2013, right here on this blog, I said that this was going to happen. Please bear with me while I roll some tape:
In 2013, Enbridge was seeking permission from the MPSC to “replace” Line 6B. And at that time, various individuals and groups sought to intervene in those proceedings in order to raise all kinds of valid concerns. But Enbridge, just as they’re doing now, worked hard to narrow the scope of what could be discussed. Specifically, they asserted that the Commission could only consider three things:
…whether (1) there is a public need for the Project, (2) the proposed pipeline… is designed and routed in a reasonable manner, and (3) the construction of the pipeline… will meet or exceed current safety and engineering standards.
In their objections this week,
Enbridge once again cites these three criteria as a way of claiming that the issues raised by the groups named above are out of bounds. In fact, as evidence for their claim, they even cite the MPSC decision on the Line 6B replacement project in 2013! But back then, I knew this very thing was bound to happen. Here’s what I wrote about this three-part standard at that time (relevant portion highlighted):
the insistence on a strict adherence to this standard– an adherence enforced by [Administrative Law Judge] Sheets– hamstrung everybody and prevented a complete and thorough hearing of the case– precisely what Enbridge wanted. And the worst part is that now that the standard has been invoked and endorsed (by Judge Sheets) and repeated and reiterated (in the MPSC press release, in news articles), it will surely take on even greater weight and authority; it will surely be cited in future cases before the MPSC and treated as settled law (even though it is not).
At the same time, I also explained why Enbridge and the ALJ and the MPSCE were completely wrong about this narrow framework.
Last April, I pointed this out again when even some of the intervenors in the Line 5 proceedings, in what struck me as a self-defeating gesture, seemed to accept that framework.
So here I am saying it once again. I know there are lots of sharp legal minds working on this matter. And they’re crafting good arguments about historical treaty rights, the public trust doctrine, climate change, Enbridge’s lame attempt to separate the tunnel from the pipeline, and more. But none of those argument are going to matter, none of them are ever going to see the light of day in front of the MPSC, unless those same sharp legal minds persuade the MPSC that Enbridge is dead wrong about the scope of the proceedings. That issue needs to be dealt with head-on and dealt with immediately. Otherwise, Enbridge’s will once again succeed in cutting off all interventions at the knees just like they did seven years ago.
The good news for the intervenors is that everything they need to demonstrate that Enbridge is wrong and that the MPSC has the authority to think about the Line 5 re-route as broadly as they choose is right there in Act 16. Better yet, it’s right there in my blog post from 2013– pro bono.
by Jeffrey Insko | Jun 21, 2020 |
It’s been a bad week for Enbridge.
By now, I assume you’ve seen the news: Enbridge disclosed to the state on Thursday that they’ve discovered serious but unexplained damage to an anchor supporting a segment of Line 5. Apparently it was bad enough that Enbridge shut the line down briefly. The governor sent a letter requesting more information but before the ink was even dry on that letter Enbridge started the line up again, prompting a second stern letter from Governor Whitmer. As of this writing, no one really knows what happened.
This news comes on the heels of the announcement, which I wrote about on Friday, that the EPA fined Enbridge more than $6 million dollars for safety violations related to the 2017 consent decree. Unsurprisingly, Enbridge offered up a whole bunch of lame excuses for their lack of compliance with some very simple rules.
It also comes on the heels of a rather extraordinary letter published in the Detroit News by Enbridge’s Great Lakes Director of Operatons Mike Moeller. Of course, the letter has nothing interesting to say at all. What makes it extraordinary is the sheer number of bromides Moeller (or the PR shill who wrote it for him) is able to pack into a short letter to the editor. It trots out every hackneyed phrase (“indomitable resolve”! “unwavering focus”! “hard work [and] determination”) its authors could think of and then, just when you start to feel queasy, they add some platitudes about “resilience” and “forg[ing] strong connections with the communities in which we operate” and Michigander’s “spirit in the face of adversity”– a spirit Moeller apparently finds “inspiring.” Gag.
This sort of clichéd prose, as any reader can tell instantly, is the hallmark of insincerity. And ordinarily, I wouldn’t even bother commenting on yet another pointless assemblage of vapid phrases from Enbridge. But the juxtaposition of Moeller’s letter with the other Enbridge news of this week provides a striking reminder of something else everyone else knows but that can’t be repeated often enough:
That despite all their public relations claptrap about “critical infrastructure” needs, all their hollow talk about their commitments to Michigan, and all their unconvincing assurances about “operational and environmental safeguards,” Enbridge really only cares about one thing: pumping as much oil through their pipelines as quickly and for as long as they can to make as much profit as possible. Period. That’s it.
So if that means treating landowners, communities, and local officials shabbily, so be it. If that means withholding information of pipeline defects from the state or dragging their feet to fix those defects, so be it. If that means treating “administrative” matters as an afterthought, so be it. And if that means thumbing their nose at a Governor rightly concerned about the revelation of a potentially dangerous situation and hastily starting Line 5 up again despite her calls that they proceed with caution and transparency, then so be it.
Update (6/23): In response to the re-start and disregard of Gov. Whitmer’s request for a full investigation, Attorney General Dana Nessel has filed a Court motion seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction pending more information. Nessel also released a statement:
To date, Enbridge has provided no explanation of what caused this damage and a woefully insufficient explanation of the current condition and safety of the pipeline as a result of this damage…We cannot rely on Enbridge to act in the best interests of the people of this State so I am compelled to ask the Court to order them to.”
As I’ve said before, Nessel gets it. She knows very well what everybody else knows: Enbridge is never going to change. They literally can’t. They can’t even if the individuals who work for the company, like Mike Moeller, honestly would like to. That’s because Enbridge exists only to do one thing and they’re going to keep doing that thing until someone tells them they can’t. The only interest they’ll ever act in favor of is their bottom line. That’s why it’s long past time for the Governor, who thankfully supports Nessel’s latest action, to continue to pretend there’s an amicable solution to the Line 5 problem. It’s long past time for her to finally take decisive action.
At this point, there is really only thing to ask of Enbridge: just spare us the bullshit.
by Jeffrey Insko | Jun 19, 2020 |
Enbridge has been fined again. This week, Enbridge announced that it has reached a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to comply with safety-related measures stipulated in the U.S. Department of Justice consent decree Enbridge agreed to in 2017 as a result of the Marshall spill.
You can read the whole thing here. The fines totaling $6.7 million are the result, among other things, of Enbridge’s failure “to complete timely identification and evaluation of thousands of ‘shallow dent’ features on Lakehead System pipelines” and to take measures to repair or mitigate those defects in their pipelines.
Sound familiar?
This is exhausting. I’ve been writing this same blog post for 8 full years now. I’m frankly tired of it. How many times do I have to point out that Enbridge, despite all of its corporate public relations rhetoric, never learns from its mistakes? How many times do I need to document how they repeat precisely the same (unsafe) behavior over and over? How many times do I have to rehearse the fact that when they get busted they prevaricate and dissemble and make laughable excuses like a teenager caught sneaking peppermint schnapps from the liquor cabinet?
First, let’s be very clear about one thing: failing to take swift action to correct defects on a pipeline is very serious business. By now, everyone reading this knows that is exactly what led to the disastrous spill in Marshall. We all know that Enbridge knew, for years, about cracks and other defects in Line 6B but they did not take measures to fix those problems. We also know the result: a million gallons of diluted bitumen in the Kalamazoo River.
Secondly, fast forward to 2017, when Enbridge once again tried to hide or downplay pipeline defects, this time with Line 5. Enbridge knew about damaged protective coating on Line 5 for years before divulging that very important and very serious information to Michigan state officials
Thirdly, Enbridge’s response in these instances is always grudging compliance and excuse-making. Never do they take responsibility. The present example of this is so extraordinary I need to tell you about it in some detail. Please stick with me:
Although Enbridge has agreed to pay the $6-plus million in fines, they steadfastly refuse to concede that they have committed any safety violations. Instead, in a truly stunning letter to the EPA, Enbridg’s attorneys shamelessly attempt to write the whole thing off as no big deal, insisting that “all of these alleged violations were largely administrative in nature and did not result in any safety issues, missed integrity risk reduction activities, loss of product or any damage to the environment.” So, for example, when the EPA fines Enbridge for failing to report crack features in a timely manner, Enbridge says it was because of “an administrative oversight.” And when the EPA fines Enbridge for completing their Threat Integration for Line 3 a few days late, Enbridge shrugs it off as “an administrative error.” And on and on and on. No parent of a child would ever accept such bullshit.
But two things are worth recognizing here with regard to these “administrative” matters. First, this kind of administration is incredibly important. Enbridge seems to want the EPA and the rest of us to believe that because these things are all “administrative in nature” they are of no particular concern. But there are important reasons for these rules; there are important reasons that regulatory bodies require, say, the timely reporting of crack defects in pipelines: it’s one way to assure that those defects get corrected before there is a problem, like a massive spill. Applying for a driver’s license and keeping your auto insurance updated are also “administrative in nature,” but they are important. Administration is prevention.
Secondly, if a corporation is making that many “administrative errors” isn’t that a sign of some deeper problems? Sure, anybody can make one mistake. There are a hundred reasons why someone might make an auto insurance payment late; insurance companies even make allowances for such things. But if I pay my insurance bill late over and over, eventually my insurer will probably terminate my coverage. And make no mistake about it, Enbridge has a long history of exhibiting troubling patterns of behavior, a long history of just these kinds of systemic problems. Have we already forgotten about the NTSB’s description of the company’s “culture of deviance” from safety protocols? How can Enbridge expect to earn the public’s trust if they’re so sloppy and lax with regard to “administrative” matters?
Finally– and this is the most important part– Enbridge insists to EPA over and over that these administrative problems “did not result in any safety issues, missed integrity risk reduction activities, loss of product or any damage to the environment.” But that argument is outlandish. To extend my analogy, just because I drove my car home safely without a license or insurance does not mean I should have been driving the car. And I definitely shouldn’t be driving it while drinking, which is basically what Enbridge is doing by continuing to operate pipelines with known defects. Just because nothing happened this time doesn’t mean it won’t. Again, that’s the whole point of all of this: prevention.
Frankly, I don’t know how EPA can abide Enbridge’s cavalier attitude toward these things, especially given the way Enbridge has thumbed its nose at the EPA in the past. But one thing is for sure: this troubling behavior, these lapses, these failures to take responsibility, this disturbing pattern of behavior should be given serious consideration when it comes to regulatory approvals (or disapprovals) of Line 3 and Line 5. Enbridge calls them “administrative errors”; I call them “evidence.”
by Jeffrey Insko | May 15, 2020 |
Sheltering in place this week, I’ve spent some time reading comments and other filings on the Line 5 case before the Michigan Public Service Commission— work I happily take on so you don’t have to! It’s heartening to see so many Michigan citizens adding their voices to the proceedings. Hundreds of people have written to express their opposition to the tunnel plan, while only a handful have written in support. Let’s hope the Commissioners take seriously the “Public” in the agency’s title.
It’s been especially inspiring to see the comments of so many tribal groups, in my view the most important voices to be heard in these proceedings. In fact, I encourage everyone to seek out and read the comments of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Ojibwe, the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, the Sokaogon Chippewa Community, the Bay Mills Indian Community, the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, and the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi if only to be reminded of the vital living presence of indigenous peoples in our state and region. Taken together, these comments also provide a remarkable and remarkably important history lesson– of settler violence, (broken) treaties, and violations of tribal sovereignty—that every citizen should know. As James Williams Jr, Tribal Chairman of the Lac Vieux Desert Band puts it, “descendants of the Ojibwe [have] inhabited and maintained life from these lands for time immemorial. Our lives are tied to these lands and we have consistently been at the mercy of Enbridge and the State of Michigan as our lives are still tied to our historical waters.”
Recounting that history and ensuring that indigenous groups have their say in the present is precisely what makes Enbridge’s heavy-handed attempt to hobble this process by seeking a declaratory ruling under an Order granted in 1953 so galling. As Richard A. Peterson Tribal Chairman of the Red Cliff Band says in his comments, granting Enbridge’s request would “deprive…impacted tribes the opportunity to participate in the proceedings.” That would simply be unconscionable and in my view is reason enough alone to rule against Enbridge.
Others have weighed in as well. I appreciated the comments of the Michigan Resource Stewards, who call Enbridge’s request for declaratory relief a “ludicrous and a self-serving act.” Senator Jeff Irwin submitted a thoughtful letter emphasizing that “Line 5 also advances climate change and threatens energy security” and making the excellent point that the tunnel plan is backward looking. “Tunnelling will take a decade or more to complete,” Irwin writes, “by 2030, many communities are aiming to eliminate fossil fuels. This ruling would counter these productive goals.”
Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office also filed yesterday. The AG focuses upon the absurdity of Enbridge’s claim that the Line 5 tunnel project is merely “maintenance” rather than new construction in a new location. The AG also makes the particularly devastating point that the last time Enbridge embarked upon a “maintenance and rehabilitation” project– the “replacement” of Line 6B– they applied for MPSC approval, a fact that blatantly contradicts their current position that such approval is not required.
Other filings reiterate these arguments and add to them as well. The comments and objections from the Environmental Law & Policy Center and Michigans Climate Action Network eloquently describe Enbridge’s reliance upon the 1953 approval as an attempt “to freeze that determination and transport it forward in time forever” as if (as I have pointed out on more than one occasion) we’re still living in the twentieth century. Attorney Margrethe Kearney explains,
That 1953 determination of the public interest did not have the benefit of 67 years of accumulated knowledge regarding the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are home to 20 percent of the fresh surface water on the planet, provide drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people, and anchor a thriving tourism industry. We know and recognize that the Straits of Mackinac is one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in the world.
The success of this especially urgent argument, as I pointed out in my last post, depends upon recognizing the broad authority the MPSC possesses in these matters. It is heartening, therefore, to see the latest filing on behalf of the Michigan Environmental Council, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, and the National Wildlife Federation taking up the argument I made in my last post regarding the narrowness of the three-part framework Enbridge worked hard to codify during the Line 6B MPSC proceedings. This time, attorney Christopher Bzdok emphasizes the fact that Act 16 “provides the Commission with broad jurisdiction to approve the construction, maintenance, operation, and routing of pipelines delivering liquid petroleum products for public use” and authorizes the Commission “to make all rules, regulations, and orders necessary to give effect to and enforce the provisions of this act.” Therefore, Bzdok asserts, “the commenters believe the scope of the Commission’s review should be broader than these three standards, in recognition of modern realities.” Bravo!
Which brings me finally to Enbridge’s latest filing, which is so strange, so tortured, and so poorly written that it’s almost laughable. As if reflecting just how impoverished Enbridge’s position really is, attorney Michael Ashton ties himself into knots to make something stick. That something is Rule 447, which outlines requirements for applications pertaining to the construction of pipelines and electric facilities. Ashton is trying to claim that under Rule 447, an application for the Line 5 project is not required. But it’s an argument that requires such contortions that Ashton winds up producing barely coherent, ungrammatical sentences like this:
In interpreting the type of construction that subject to Rule 447, meaning must be provided to the phrase “to be furnished” and the term “new” which modifies the type of “construction” or “extension” in Rule 447.
Ashton means to appeal here to the “plain language” or “plain meaning” of 447. But he then spends four pages trying to beat the terms “to be” and “new” into proper submission. Now, I am by trade a Professor of English; interrogating the slipperiness of language is my stock-in-trade. There are decades-long theoretical debates among literary scholars regarding whether meaning is inherent in language or whether it is a thing that “must be provided.” I also happen to adhere to Herman Melville’s dictum in Moby-Dick that “in this world it is not so easy to settle… plain things. I have ever found your plain things the knottiest of all.” But all of that is why literary critics, unlike lawyers, rarely make appeals to “plain meaning”– because we recognize that if it takes you 200 words to try and convince someone, for example, that the word “new” doesn’t apply to a massive, $500 million construction project to install a section of pipeline of a different size in a different location than the ones that are already in place then what you are really arguing is that the meaning of the rule isn’t “plain” at all. Either that or you are simply engaging in deliberate, outlandish obfuscation: war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.
The same goes for Ashton’s weird argument about “to be.” Because Rule 447 has requirements regarding descriptions of “the nature of the utility to be furnished,” Ashton wants to pretend that “to be” only refers to services “not yet provided, but to be provided in the future.” But he’s just grasping at straws. Anyone who’s ever watched a tv show that ends “To Be Continued” knows that services (whether narrative or the delivery of petroleum) can both already be provided and be provided in the future. Duh.
All of which is to say that it seems to me quite, um, plain that Enbridge has an extremely weak case with regard to their request for a declaratory ruling. It would be utterly irresponsible for the Commissioners to fast-track such a high-profile project of such massive scale in such an ecologically sensitive area with so much opposition.
This is going to be a very long process.
by Jeffrey Insko | Apr 22, 2020 |
As part of their ludicrous plan to build the infrastructure of the mid-20th century, last Friday Enbridge filed an application with the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) seeking approval to replace and relocate a segment of Line 5 under the Straits of Mackinac. It’s a strange application, since Enbridge simultaneously seeks MPSC approval and claims that it already has MPSC approval from 1953 and therefore doesn’t need the MPSC to approve it again. So thoughtful of them to give the present Commission this convenient time-saving alternative!
Reading Enbridge’s filing this week, I experienced a bit of déjà vu. It took me back to 2012-13 when Enbridge sought MPSC approval for the Line 6B “replacement” project. They’ve even hired the same attorney, Michael S. Ashton of the firm Fraser Trebilcock, to lead the new effort (I had a run-in or two with him back in the day). As this process begins, it might be instructive to re-visit how things went the last time around. It’s not a pretty story.
The short version is this: the analysis of that project provided by the commission’s public engineer consisted mainly of taking Enbride’s word for things, the MPSC staff attorney spent a significant amount of time laboring on behalf of Enbridge, the rulings of the Administrative Law Judge who oversaw the proceedings favored Enbridge’s tendentious claims at almost every turn, the MPSC attorney who wrote the final ruling in the case mocked and ridiculed public intervenors, and, worst of all, by the end Enbridge had effectively re-written Michigan law.
That last fact is crucial. Without going into too much detail here (you can read more about it if you’re so inclined), what happened was that Ashton and his team of crafty lawyers helped narrow the scope of the MPSC’s authority, preventing the Commission from taking all sorts of factors into consideration when approving pipeline applications. Instead, the Enbridge lawyers seemed to convince the Commission that its only legal charge is to determine three things: whether a pipeline project “will serve a public need, is designed and routed in a reasonable manner, and meets or exceeds current safety and engineering standards.” At the time, I expressed concern about what this severely limited framework might mean in the future. Here’s what I wrote in 2013:
the worst part is that now that the standard has been invoked and endorsed (by Judge Sheets) and repeated and reiterated (in the MPSC press release, in news articles), it will surely take on even greater weight and authority; it will surely be cited in future cases before the MPSC and treated as settled law (even though it is not).
Already, I worry that my fears are being realized. In the first petition to intervene that has been filed in the Line 5 case, for example, the Michigan Environmental Council cites the Line 6B ruling as the MPSC’s criteria for approval:
Before the Commission can approve Enbridge’s Act 16 request, the Commission will consider whether “(1) the applicant has demonstrated a public need for the proposed pipeline, (2) the proposed pipeline is designed and routed in a reasonable manner, and (3) the construction of the pipeline will meet or exceed current safety and engineering standards.” In re Enbridge Energy Limited Partnership, Case No. U-17020, January 31, 2013, Order, p. 5.
Of course, the MEC goes on to challenge the Line 5 application on each of these grounds, which is all well and good. The problem is that adopting this narrow framework plays right into Enbridge’s hands by severely limiting what the MPSC can and cannot consider. This restricted framework will preclude discussion of all kinds of other important questions that the MPSC might otherwise take into consideration– and which they can take into consideration– since the relevant law here, known as Act 16, gives the Commission much broader authority than what Enbridge (and the MEC, apparently) would have you believe. Those things might include, for example, Enbridge’s safety history (like the 2010 Marshall spill), the sovereign rights of tribal groups, future-oriented energy policy in Michigan, and of course the urgencies of climate change.
But mark my words: when intervenors try to raise these questions, Enbridge will ask that they be ruled inadmissible because they are beyond the scope of those three criteria. And they’ll most likely get their way. This is exactly what happened last time, when the ALJ disallowed, for instance, the National Transportation Safety Board’s report on the Marshall spill as evidence in the matter.
Maybe things will be different this time. There are new commissioners, new MPSC staff attorneys. Hopefully, these changes include a change in outlook, a greater commitment to the public good than was on display in 2013. But if I’m being honest, I’m wary.
We may get our first indication today, when the MPSC meets on the matter, electronically, at 2:30. The meeting will include time for public comments. The public may also submit comments on the case docket here. The case number is U-20763
by Jeffrey Insko | Mar 9, 2020 |
Much of the debate over the fate of Enbridge’s Line 5 beneath the Straits of Mackinac has taken the form of speculative fiction: frightening imaginative projections of a not-so-distant future. Opponents and proponents of Line 5 alike each cast their gaze forward and offer competing semi-apocalyptic narratives of what they foresee. Those calling for the shut down of Line 5 imagine a catastrophic rupture, in which thousands of gallons of oil spill into the Straits, get swept away by powerful currents, and despoil hundreds of miles of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron shoreline, poisoning the water and killing fish and wildlife. On the other side, Enbridge and its supporters conjure a dangerous future that features a nation in thrall to foreign sources of energy, rising gasoline prices, grandmothers freezing in UP winters, and convoys of exploding tanker trucks rumbling across the Mackinac Bridge.
Crews in 1953 prepare to pull steel pipe across the Straits of Mackinac
Two sides of the same coin, these doomsday narratives echo the nightmare visions of post-apocalyptic fictions: nuclear winter, zombies, or the mass floods and burned-out landscapes of “cli-fi” (fiction about climate change)– books and movies that simply duplicate the terrifying projections of climate scientists. Just read the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for example, or a nonfiction best-seller like David Wallace-Wells’s The Uninhabitable Earth. The power and appeal of this dystopic, future-oriented narrative form resides in its potential to rouse people from apathetic slumber, its ability to inspire action-before-it’s-too-late. After all, we should be worried and scared. Therefore, visions of a frightful future might well prove rhetorically, and perhaps even politically, effective.
But lately, I’ve become increasingly concerned with what I think are some of the limitations of this concern for the future, this preventative attitude that, strangely, unites people on both sides of the Line 5 question. For one thing, I’m increasingly worried that imagining catastrophe as belonging to some imagined, avertable future allows us to pretend that things are okay right now. More and more, I wonder whether we focus on future possibilities, good and bad, as a way of avoiding present realities.
The latest news from Enbridge has prompted these reflections. Just last week, they announced that they’ve secured contractors to build their tunnel (itself, as I’ve argued before, an implausible speculative fiction). I was particularly struck by the comments of Enbridge’s Vice President of U.S. Operations Brad Shamla, who, according to the Detroit News insisted that Line 5 is “essential to the state’s energy future.” Shamla then repeats the standard Enbridge boilerplate about the “critical fuel” Enbridge Line 5 provides and touts “the thousands of products Line 5 helps make possible.”
Shamla’s claim about “critical fuel” succinctly evokes the Enbridge dystopic narrative about freezing UP residents and national energy (in)security. But what about the “thousands of products Line 5 makes possible”? What does that phrase evoke? It’s a fairly new line of argument for Enbridge, one that didn’t feature prominently in Enbridge’s PR two or three years ago, when all the talk was about propane and gasoline. Deliberately nonspecific, this new talking point is meant to remind us that the oil Line 5 transports isn’t just used as fuel to heat our homes and power our cars, but is used in the production of a myriad of everyday products. At the same time, Enbridge is careful not to push the point too hard, careful not to specify precisely what those “thousands of products” might actually be.
Imperial Oil web copy
Which brings me to the catastrophe of the present. What Enbridge doesn’t say about the products Line 5 makes possible is that nearly all of them have one thing in common: plastic. I’ve written about the early history of Line 5 elsewhere; it’s worth remembering that the pipeline wasn’t built to deliver propane to heat Michigan homes; it was built to feed the rapidly expanding oil and gas refineries in Sarnia, Ontario, the manufacturing hub now known as “Chemical Valley.” To this day, the vast majority of oil Line 5 transports is exported to Sarnia, where refiners like Imperial Oil (a subsidiary of ExxonMobil) transform it into petrochemical feedstock like polyethylene and vinyl intermediates, materials that are used to manufacture everything from shopping bags to plastic bottles and kayaks—literally “1,000s of products,” as Imperial also boasts.
The problem with this boast is that plastic pollution, as we’ve discussed on this blog before, is choking the planet, inundating the oceans, killing wildlife, penetrating the earth’s soil, and infiltrating our drinking water. A recent article in Rolling Stone magazine tells the story in grisly detail. Buy you’ve likely already seen the appalling images: the great Pacific garbage patch, sharks entangled in plastic nets, pounds of plastic found in the stomachs of dead whales, cattle grazing on pastures of plastic.
Photo credit: Zikri Maulana/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images
Less visible and less extensively studied, the Great Lakes are likewise awash in plastic. These days, a casual stroll of any Lake Michigan shoreline will yield you far more plastic debris than it will Petoskey stones. Experts estimate that more than 20 million pounds of plastic winds up in the Great Lakes each year. Researchers have also discovered that tiny microplastic particles are ubiquitous in the Great Lakes, where they are ingested by fish, then by the birds (and humans) that feed on those fish. Microplastics pervade our drinking water and even, according to a recent study, our craft beer. The health effects of ingesting all this plastic, full of toxins, are still unknown.
Lake Michigan shoreline, Glen Arbor
All of which is to say that Line 5 is not just a disaster waiting to happen; Line 5 doesn’t just threaten to pollute the Great Lakes and to poison wildlife and humans alike. Line 5 has already polluted the Great Lakes. Line 5 has already poisoned wildlife and humans. Line 5 has already helped produce a disaster.
A tunnel to house Line 5 beneath the Great Lakes simply guarantees a continuation—an intensification—of this ongoing planetary calamity at a moment when everybody knows that what we desperately need is to find a way to reverse course, to figure out how to kick our plastic habit. And make no mistake about it: Enbridge understands this. Their recent rhetoric touting “the thousands of products Line 5 makes possible” is part of an industry-wide effort to increase petrochemical production as demand for fossil fuels decreases due to the climate crisis. Fossil fuel companies seem to figure that if they can’t set the planet on fire, they can nevertheless bury it in plastic.
Obviously, Enbridge’s Line 5 isn’t the sole source of petrochemical feedstock. Nor will shutting down Line 5 solve the problem of plastic pollution. But sooner or later– probably sooner– the dismantling of the fossil fuel infrastructure that is destroying species and the planet has to commence. Michigan has an opportunity to lead the world in the process of undoing an unsustainable system and building a new, better one.
For that reason, maybe it’s time those of us who want to see the permanent decommissioning of Line 5 to stop talking about prevention, to stop imagining disaster as looming in the future, to stop telling stories about what might happen . Maybe instead we should be telling stories about the damage, visible and invisible, that is all around us here in the present. After all, the catastrophic future is now.
by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 20, 2019 |
If you’ve been paying attention to Line 5 matters in the past few weeks, you may have noticed that Enbridge has turned up the volume on its campaign to gain public support for its phantom tunnel. In addition to their own radio spots, Enbridge has enlisted some of their influential friends in the effort, like the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and even the powerful American Petroleum Institute. More recently, it appears they have convinced some credulous county commissions to join in their public relations effort by adopting a formal resolution in support of Line 5. It’s not clear who wrote the thing and at least one commissioner claims it wasn’t Enbridge, but from start to finish it is taken verbatim from well-worn Enbridge talking points.
Unfortunately, this is an old pattern. As a landowner who lives along the Enbridge Line 6B pipeline route, I have spent years observing, recording their misdeeds, and sometimes even working closely with Enbridge. During the replacement project, I watched over and over as sweet-talking Enbridge reps seduced local officials into believing their every word. What’s disheartening about this dynamic is that we have mountains of evidence that Enbridge’s words can’t be trusted. Since the Marshall spill in 2010, Enbridge has compiled a long and not-so-distinguished record that illustrates vividly how they deal with Michigan elected officials. Perhaps these county commissioners are unaware of this sordid history. So let’s recall just a handful of examples:
- In the days following the spill in late July 2010, then Enbridge CEO Patrick Daniel was asked repeatedly by reporters if the material spilled from Line 6B was tar sands oil. On more than one occasion, Daniel categorically denied that the line carried tar sands. Pressed on the question by reporters days later, Daniel finally conceded the point, but not without some verbal gymnastics and hair-splitting that included denying his original denial. This failure to be honest had severe consequences. It meant that residents along the river were not evacuated as soon as they probably should have been and it rendered initial cleanup efforts less effective, as first responders assumed they were dealing with conventional crude, which behaves differently in fresh water.
- Beginning in 2011, when Enbridge embarked upon its replacement of Line 6B across the State of Michigan, they left countless landowners feeling mistreated, misinformed, and taken advantage of. They also dealt dishonestly with local officials. When one township dared to ask Enbridge for compliance with their local ordinances, Enbridge dragged its feet and made all manner of false promises and assurances in a tortuous process that dragged on for months. At one point, the township supervisor offered this frank assessment:“Enbridge does not appear to be sincere in what they have communicated to the township.
- Nor was Enbridge’s lack of sincerity confined to its dealing with township officials. Midway through the Kalamazoo River cleanup, Enbridge Vice President Rich Adams offered up a brazen falsehood to the Environmental Protection Agency—in writing. In 2013, Enbridge sought an extension of the EPA-imposed deadline to complete its dredging of the river. In his letter making this request, Adams specifically claimed that Enbridge had “promptly applied for all necessary local permits for the operation.” But in fact, the reason Enbridge’s dredging work was delayed was precisely because Comstock Township officials discovered that Enbridge was beginning work without having sought the appropriate permits.
- At times, Enbridge has difficulty speaking forthrightly about even the simplest of things. In 2014, Enbridge took out full-page ads in Michigan newspapers to commemorate the anniversary of the spill and to convince the public that the spill was an event they would always remember. President Brad Shamla put it this way, “July 26, 2010 is a day no one at Enbridge will ever forget.” But of course everyone knows that the spill did not happen on July 26; Line 6B ruptured on July 25. It took seventeen hours for Enbridge to discover the spill, a fact that their public remembrance apparently tried to make everyone forget.
- Enbridge has proven no more trustworthy in its communications with the state about Line 5. In 2017, Enbridge ensured members of the state’s Pipeline Safety Advisory Board that the protective coating on Line 5 was without defects. Later, however, it was revealed that Enbridge knew about damage to the pipeline’s protective coating in 2014 but failed to disclose the information to state regulatory agencies.
Further examples abound (preserved in the Line 6B Citizens’ Blog archives); these are simply some of the most egregious. The lesson is clear. For nearly a decade, Enbridge has exhibited a pattern of behavior that indicates they will say or do almost anything to advance their own interests. They have withheld information, dissembled, and distorted the truth repeatedly in their dealings with Michigan elected officials at almost every level. In the face of such demonstrable evidence of their untrustworthy actions and at an historical moment that calls for urgent action to mitigate the effects of climate change, why would state elected officials—whether it’s the Governor, the legislature, or count commissioners—trust Enbridge to do what’s right for the Great Lakes and what’s right for the planet? The tunnel is never going to be built; it’s a fantasy, a cheap ploy to stall, delay, and keep Line 5 up and running as long as possible. Let’s not let our elected representatives continue to act as Enbridge’s dupes.
by Jeffrey Insko | Jun 4, 2019 |
Like me, many of you are probably old enough to remember watching the popular 1970s television game show “Name That Tune.” Contestants would compete against one another to see who could identify a song by hearing the fewest notes. One contestant would claim she could name that tune in, say, five notes; her competitor would try to do so in fewer.
I thought of this game last week when, in response to increasing pressure from Governor Whitmer and Attorney General Nessel for some kind of resolution to the ongoing Line 5 problem, Enbridge suddenly began playing a game of “Name that Construction Deadline.” A 7-10 year timeline quickly became 5, as Enbridge claimed its engineers had discovered some fancy new technology that could have their concrete tunnel complete and a new Line 5 up and running by 2024. Since then, Governor Whitmer has intimated that even five years is too long to wait. So don’t be surprised if Enbridge somehow projects an even earlier date: “We can build that tunnel in four years. Maybe three!”
But however much Enbridge would like to convince Michigan state officials that their new five-year timeline is feasible, the reality is that it’s no more likely than the possibility that a contestant on “Name That Tune,” backed into a corner by her competitor, can identify a song by a single note. Last week, I explained why five years (and probably even ten) is a ludicrous claim. I also pointed out that Enbridge likewise knows how unlikely that projection is, which is why they had their army of lawyers churning out legalistic disclaimers about “forward-looking statements.” And I provided some telling examples of Enbridge’s unfortunate habit of missing deadlines.
Yesterday provided another illustration of just how unrealistic the 2024 projection is. You may have heard that Enbridge has also proposed a new pipeline project up in Minnesota. Their plan is to replace their aging– and ailing– Line 3 pipeline (which I’ve written about in the past). The trouble is, they’ve chosen a route that all sorts of sensible people, from ordinary citizens (with whom I’ve been fortunate to meet and speak) to tribal groups, find objectionable, not least because it would cross through some very sensitive waterways, including the headwaters of the Mississippi River. As a result, Enbridge’s plans have been bogged down by regulatory processes, legal interventions, and activism.
Sound familiar? Let’s roll the tape on Line 3, keeping in mind that this is exactly what’s in store for Line 5 if some kind of tunnel agreement is reached:
Enbridge announced the Line 3 project in spring 2014. At the time, they acknowledged that the project would require both a presidential permit from the U.S. state department and regulatory approval from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. Taking those approvals into account, Enbridge projected the new Line 3 would be up and running in late 2017.
But by 2017, the project remained in regulatory limbo in Minnesota. Despite that uncertainty, Enbridge plowed forward with the project, beginning construction in Wisconsin and anticipating that construction in Minnesota would begin some time in 2018. These new projections would have the line operational “sometime in 2019.”
A year later, Enbridge was feeling optimistic after the Minnesota PUC gave its approval to the project in June 2018. In response to that news, Enbridge optimistically predicted that construction could begin in early 2019.
But here we are midway through 2019 and Enbridge still hasn’t received all the necessary permits to begin construction. Facing that reality, last March Enbridge announced that Line 3 would be placed in service “a year later than anticipated.” The new projection, then, would have a new Line 3 pumping oil some time in 2020.
Then came yesterday’s news: a Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that the state’s environmental assessment failed to consider the effects of a spill on the Lake Superior watershed. The ruling therefore reversed the PUC’s approval of the project. A new environmental review is sure to take many months to complete, which means Enbridge would be lucky to begin construction before 2020. That means the best case scenario for Enbridge’s Line 3 start up is probably 2021— assuming there are no more delays, courts challenges, protests, or other impediments.
Get the picture? In 2014, Enbridge projected a 2017 startup date for Line 3, which got pushed to 2019, then to 2020, and now (in all probability) to 2021. There is no end in sight– there is not even a beginning in sight– for Line 3.
Does anyone believe things will go any differently for Line 5? Does anybody believe for one second that Enbridge’s new five year timeline is even remotely plausible? 2024 is 2026 is 2028 is 2029 is…
So I’ll say it again: there is no future for Line 5.
by Jeffrey Insko | May 30, 2019 |
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the history of Line 5, arguing that its decommissioning should be understood not just as a preventative measure against imminent disaster, but as a matter of environmental justice, of damage already inflicted. Given the stern comments of Attorney General Dana Nessel this week, it’s worth shifting our gaze forward and acknowledging what everybody knows but not everybody wants to admit: there is no future for Line 5.
Enbridge surely knows this, though they’d never admit it. And who can blame them? Their job is to transport oil and they’ll keep trying to do it as long as they possibly can. Nobody likes to imagine the inevitability of their own obsolescence. But the Line 5 tunnel scheme has always been about delaying the inevitable. It’s worth remembering, for example, that Enbridge hatched the plan less than 2 years ago. Before that, Enbridge insisted the current line is “fit for service” and could “operate indefinitely.” Only when the previous gubernatorial administration started talking tough and public pressure heated up did Enbridge start talking about “alternatives.” In other words, the tunnel idea has never been anything other than a transparent attempt to placate state officials. Enbridge can’t possibly want to build it. Large corporations are notoriously short-sighted after all. Why make a half billion dollar capital investment in infrastructure they insist doesn’t even need to be replaced? It’s a wonder so many people have fallen for this.
Even if Enbridge did want to build it, it’s hard to imagine it will ever really happen. For more than a year, Enbridge has said that construction will take 7-10 years. But this week, with Governor Whitman and AG Nessel both expressing impatience with that length of time, Enbridge’s engineers have suddenly– miraculously!– discovered that they can build the tunnel in under 5 years. (You really can’t make this stuff up.) But anyone who has paid any attention to Enbridge over the past decade knows that its history of construction timetable projections and its track record in the state of making deadlines does not engender much confidence. We were told, for instance, that the Line 6B replacement would take about 4 months. It took three years. In addition, Enbridge has a troubling habit of failing to meet deadlines (see here and here and here). So whether you start with 4-5 or 7-10 years, you can expect much longer than that.
All of which is unlikely to matter anyway, since any Line 5 tunnel construction activity is certain to be delayed for years by lawsuits, legal interventions, environmental assessments, and protests. Just this week, the Anishinaabek Caucus of the Michigan Democratic Party issued a statement, in solidarity with the 12 Tribes of Michigan and the Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority, affirming its opposition to the tunnel and announcing its intention to exert its rights under Federal Treaties. Tribal groups alone could delay approval of a tunnel plan for who-knows-how-long. And that’s to say nothing of environmental groups, business owners, and others who will surely try to intervene, through various means, in the courts and in the state approval process. Thus I couldn’t help but chuckle when an Enbridge representative said yesterday, “Assuming we work through a normal permitting timeline, we should be under construction by 2021.” Enbridge can’t possibly believe the timeline for securing approvals for such a controversial project will be anything close to “normal.” Even the Line 6B replacement, a project that generated very little organized protest one that virtually everyone supported, took far, far longer than anyone would expect under a “normal permitting timeline.”
So even under a best-case scenario (for Enbridge) approval of the tunnel project, even with the Governor’s support, is years away. But by that time the visible effects of climate change are only going to be worse, public awareness of ever-increasing global temperature rises greater, and public demand for political action to curb greenhouse gas emissions much louder than it is even now. In ten years, it’s doubtful that anyone, including many of Enbridge’s current supporters, will have the stomach for a 100-year fossil fuel infrastructure project.
My hunch is that Enbridge knows all of this. In fact, I suspect they’re banking on it. It’s going to cost them less to pay their crafty lawyers for 5 or 10 years than it will to build that tunnel. And all that time, they hope, they’ll get to keep the current lines pumping away while pretending that they’re not the ones preventing them from being encased in concrete under the lakebed. It’s a clever ruse. But it is a ruse. And it’s time to stop playing along. AG Nessel has threatened to take steps to shut Line 5 down if a deal is not reached in the next thirty days. But there’s only one deal to make: not one involving a chimerical tunnel, but a plan and a timeline for the permanent removal of Line 5 from beneath the Straits.
Update (May 31, 2019): Even Enbridge knows that their expedited timeline is ludicrous; their own press release devotes three long, legalistic paragraphs to explaining their use of “forward-looking” language. Translation: “we’re totally just making this stuff up; please don’t hold us to any of it.”
by Jeffrey Insko | Apr 30, 2019 |
Recently, Governor Whitmer, who campaigned to shut down Line 5, seemed to reverse course and expressed a willingness to consider Enbridge’s absurd scheme to build a concrete tunnel to house the Line 5 pipelines. What led to this surprising retreat from her tough stance on the campaign trail remains opaque. But one can’t help but think that what we have here is yet another instance of Enbridge, its deep pockets, and its vast cadre of crafty lawyers manipulating yet another state official. Enbridge has been trying, often with success, to play Michigan’s elected leaders for fools for at least a decade: they dissembled for days about the type of oil they spilled into the Kalamazoo River in 2010; they hoodwinked the Michigan Public Service Commission into helping them re-write Michigan law to their own advantage; they dealt dishonestly with township officials and landowners during the replacement of Line 6B; they told a brazen lie to the EPA in their attempt to skirt local authority during the cleanup of the Kalamazoo River; and at one point, they even tried to convince the public that the Kalamazoo spill didn’t happen when it happened.
Whitmer promised an end to these manipulations.
Whitmer promised an end to these manipulations. Yet here we are again, this time discussing, studying, considering, and debating whether the State of Michigan should encourage and permit a massive, decades-long investment in what is in reality a mid-20th century infrastructure project: a concrete tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac that will keep Line 5 running for another 100 years, a ludicrous plan. The very real threats that transporting oil beneath the Straits poses to the world’s largest body of fresh water have been well documented. So, too, has the urgent need to curb greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent climate catastrophe, the effects of which promise to be especially severe in the Great Lakes region in the form of rising water levels, infrastructure collapses, heat-related deaths, and dramatically reduced agricultural yields. Now is clearly not the time to encourage more fossil fuel development and consumption. Even energy market analysts are growing increasingly wary of investments in new pipeline projects.
For these reasons alone, the fact that Enbridge has convinced anyone at all to take seriously their outlandish tunnel scheme is astonishing. It’s doubtful even they take it seriously as anything other than a stalling tactic. In addition to making a backward-looking investment in fossil fuels, constructing a tunnel would require thousands of tons of concrete, the manufacture of which is another major contributor to global warming. The fact that the tunnel is treated as a real proposal, one upon which policymakers and thoughtful people ought to deliberate, is an unfortunate sign of just how much power and influence Enbridge possesses in this state, the gullibility and short-sightedness of our state legislators, and the utter failure of state leaders and, unfortunately, too many ordinary citizens to imagine a future that’s not virtually identical to our present.
Governor Whitmer’s rationale for re-considering the tunnel plan is that it can potentially “help… get the pipeline out of the water earlier.” Yet it’s not altogether clear how she has arrived at such a conclusion. After all, it is far from certain that the tunnel plan will get the pipeline out of the water earlier (one is tempted to ask, earlier than what?). Planning, studying, securing environmental permits, and an all-but-certain string of lawsuits are sure to delay the project for many years before construction even begins. Once resolved, the construction process, by Enbridge’s own estimate, is likely to takes long as another 10 years. By that time, it’s not unlikely that the realities of global warming will have persuaded even the most intractable of climate deniers, leaving a new generation of state leaders scratching their heads over what their predecessors were thinking.
Nor is it even true that the tunnel will get the pipeline out of the water. The concrete tunnel housing the new pipeline, even buried in bedrock, will still be susceptible to stresses and strains, potential cracks, seepages, accidents, explosions, and failures as any other piece of infrastructure. In other words, a tunnel is no guarantee of safety—as crumbling concrete roads, dams, bridges, and yes, tunnels, all over the world attest. And then there’s the danger of explosion. Yet among the most maddening features of the Line 5 debate has been the apparent willingness of everyone—opponents and proponents alike—to unquestioningly accept the premise— Enbridge’s premise— that a concrete tunnel somehow eliminates concerns about safety. But why should anyone assume that encasing Line 5 in concrete makes it any less vulnerable? A concrete tunnel will only introduce a new and different set of risks.
why should anyone assume that encasing Line 5 in concrete makes it any less vulnerable?
This week, Attorney General Nessel released her own statement on the matter. If talks with Enbridge fail to produce “a swift and straightforward resolution to this issue,” she announced, “I will use every resource available to our office to shut down Line 5 to protect our Great Lakes.” Nessel’s statement is carefully worded; she must surely know that any agreement that includes a tunnel will be neither swift nor straightforward. That leaves just one course of action.
In the twenty-first century Michigan’s political leaders have behaved like Rip Van Winkle. Having spent decades in a state of sleepy insensibility when it comes to the state’s energy infrastructure and freshwaters, they awakened to a new world after the disaster in Marshall in 2010. Yet they nevertheless continue to conduct themselves as if it’s still 1953, when it might have made sense to construct oil pipelines beneath the Great Lakes and when fossil fuel consumption seemed to have no consequences. But the world has changed. It’s not 1953 anymore and it’s long past time to stop acting like it is. Entertaining any solution to Line 5 other than its permanent removal from beneath the Straits makes our leaders—makes all of us—look as foolish as Rip when he mistakes the portrait of George Washington for a portrait of King George because he slept through the Revolution. We elected Governor Whitmer because she’s not a fool. She shouldn’t let Enbridge play her for one.
by Jeffrey Insko | Dec 23, 2018 |
climoji by Nichole Duncan
During the Fall 2018 semester, I taught a course on the emerging literary genre called “Cli-Fi” (or climate fiction). The course examined short stories, novels, films, and various other forms of narrative fiction that concern themselves with climate change or global warming. Our discussions centered upon the various narrative strategies through which a number of late-twentieth and twenty-first century works (such as Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation, among others) approach the environmental crises and social problems generated by a rapidly warming planet.
For their final assignments, students in the course produced their own “cli-fi.” The results were so exciting, I asked a number of students in the class for permission to publish their stories here. I have selected a stories that represented the variety of narrative strategies– not just conventional narrative, but a podcast, text messages, voicemails, film, and satire– the students employed. These stories also take up a number of themes and tropes— social breakdown, displacement, flooding, resource scarcity, the ravages of capitalism, techno-utopianism, and more—central to many of the works of cli-fi we discussed over the course of the semester. This collection therefore represents both the students engagement with the genre conventions of climate fiction as well as their own interest in grappling imaginatively with the urgencies of climate change.
by Jeffrey Insko | Oct 29, 2017 |
In not-even-remotely shocking news, the Detroit Free Press reported this past week that Enbridge knew about damaged protective coating on Line 5 for years before divulging that information to Michigan state officials. In response, some of those state officials are pretending like this is an unexpected breach of trust. Here, for example, is Valerie Brader, co-chair of the state’s Pipeline Advisory Board:
“We are deeply disappointed that Enbridge did not tell the Pipeline Safety Advisory Board in March the whole story about Line 5 coating deficiencies. . . “Enbridge owes the people of Michigan, the Advisory Board and the State an apology. This issue is too important to the people of Michigan to not tell the truth in a timely manner, and right now any trust we had in Enbridge has been seriously eroded.”
And here is the tough-talking-do-nothing Attorney General Bill Schuette:
“This latest revelation by Enbridge means that the faith and trust Michigan has placed in Enbridge has reached an even lower level. . . Enbridge needs to do more than apologize, Enbridge owes the citizens of Michigan a full and complete explanation of why they failed to truthfully report the status of the pipeline.”
How Brader or anyone else could have had any trust at all in Enbridge at this point is hard to fathom (as I explain below). And exactly what it is Schuette is asking for is anybody’s guess (what good is providing a detailed account of why they lied going to do?).
In fairness, not everybody was quite so shocked. The National Wildlife Federation’s Mike Shirberg, for example, knows the score:
“The fact that Enbridge has known about these breaks in coating for years is, unfortunately, less surprising than it ought to be,” Shriberg said in a statement. “It seems every month there is a new revelation about the deteriorating condition of Line 5 and Enbridge’s lack of transparency.”
Shirberg is right of course, but even his memory doesn’t reach back quite far enough. The really troubling thing about this latest example of Enbridge’s untrustworthiness is just how uncannily it reprises the circumstances that led to the infamous Line 6B rupture in Marshall in 2010—and that should worry everybody. On this blog, I’ve rehearsed the findings of the NTSB report on that spill more times than I can count. Every Michigander should know this history backwards and forwards. But for now, it’s worth recalling two of those findings in particular:
First, the NTSB report revealed that Enbridge knew about problems with Line 6B for years, but repeatedly determined that the defects their tests revealed did not pose any real threat. Thus the NTSB criticized them for: “Deficient integrity management procedures, which allowed well-documented crack defects in corroded areas to propagate until the pipeline failed.”
Secondly, Enbridge failed to communicate effectively with the public and first responders, which ultimately made the spill much, much worse than it otherwise might have been. That is, the NTSB criticized Enbridge for “Insufficient public awareness and education, which allowed the release to continue for nearly 14 hours after the first notification of an odor to local emergency response agencies.”
The NTSB attributed both of these failures to what it called Enbridge’s “culture of deviance” from its own safety processes and procedures.
So what does Enbridge have to say in response to this latest discovery on Line 5? Here’s their spokesman Patrick Duffy:
“The coating damage was determined not to present any threat to the safety of the pipeline at any time,” he said.
And:
“We regret that this miscommunication may have caused confusion for state officials and the public. We are committed to being transparent on all matters related to the safe operations of our pipelines in Michigan.”
You read that right. Just like with Line 6B, Enbridge didn’t bother telling anybody about the defects they discovered on Line 5 because they determined internally that those defects aren’t a problem. And just like with Line 6B they failed to communicate honestly and openly with the public and local officials. So here we are again. This is not a disappointment or a breach of trust. This is a pattern of behavior that runs very deep.
What makes all of this even worse is that Enbridge has for the past 5 years taken every opportunity to tell us all how very much they have learned from the Marshall spill (even though history shows they don’t learn from their mistakes), how it’s something they’ll never forget (even though they can’t even tell the truth about when it happened) and how much it has transformed the company (despite so much evidence to the contrary— and more and more— including this latest). But despite all the lip service and weird fetishistic iconography they’ve created to convince us that they’ve changed, their actions suggest otherwise.
And this leaves Patrick Duffy uttering nonsense the likes of which is probably making even our old friend Larry Springer blush. Duffy maintains that the company didn’t know about the missing coating in March. But he also concedes that the company’s engineers did know. Asked why officials told the Pipeline Safety Advisory Board there were no areas of exposed metal on Line 5, Duffy says such “statements were accurate to the best of their awareness”– whatever that means. He then chalks the whole thing up to “an internal reporting issue” before gaslighting the whole state, implying that concerns about exposed steel are just overreaction: “Enbridge has come to recognize that issues which do not present a threat to the safety of the pipeline can still present a strong concern to Michigan,” he says, promising that “we are adjusting our communication approach accordingly.” (Whatever that last statement means, I’m quite sure it’s not “we will tell the truth next time.”) You don’t have to be a professional psychologist to recognize this as the sort of incoherent gibberish a person generates when they’re completely full of shit.
It’s not clear what the state will do in the face of this completely predictable revelation. Unfortunately, my best guess is that the state won’t do much at all. But whatever the case, it’s long past time we should accept anyone– elected officials, members of the Pipeline Safety Advisory Board, reporters, or anyone else paying the slightest attention– pretending to find Enbridge’s mistakes, missteps, misinformation, or misleading information to be anything other than business as usual.
by Jeffrey Insko | Jun 21, 2017 |
This just in: the state of Michigan has terminated the contract of the firm hired to perform a risk assessment of Line 5. The reason? Conflict of interest. From the MDEQ press release:
Within the past month, the state’s project team became aware that an employee who had worked on the risk analysis at DNV GL subsequently worked on another project for Enbridge Energy Co., Inc., which owns the Line 5 pipeline, while the risk analysis was being completed. This is a violation of conflict of interest prohibitions contained in the contract.
It’s not clear how the state learned about this so late in the game. Nor is it clear why or how Enbridge would go out of its way to sink the assessment report. What does seem clear is that Enbridge continues to do everything it can to make it impossible for anyone to trust them. Who was it who recently said you can’t believe anything they say?
Update: Keith Matheny at the Detroit Free Press has more on the story, including a typically evasive statement from Attorney General Schuette delivered by way of an obfuscatory passive construction: “our trust was violated” (by whom he does not say). An Enbridge spokesman also weighs in, stating that they “are investigting what may have happened in the contracting process.” I’m not sure what that means either, but Enbridge’s apparent inability to keep track of such important matters does little to inspire confidence.
by Jeffrey Insko | Jun 20, 2017 |
by Jeffrey Insko | May 19, 2017
You probably won’t hear about it much in the news, given recent events in the national political arena, but two very bad regulatory decisions were made here in Michigan this week that ought to alarm you. Both of them could significantly weaken local authority—like efforts to protect sensitive natural resources— in matters involving energy infrastructure.
If you’re a fellow Line 6b landowner, you may be apt to experience a disturbing flashback, as I did. So brace yourself. You might recall that one of the prolonged controversies during the “replacement” had to do with the question of whether Enbridge was required to comply with local ordinances or obtain local consent for their work as stipulated by the Michigan constitution. I wrote about this on a number of occasions. Well, this week, the state Supreme Court issued a ruling on a very similar question. In effect, the decisions says that the Michigan Public Service Commission (you remember them, right), comprised of political appointees who are in no way accountable to voters, can preempt ordinances passed by democratically elected local officials.
Here’s the story: over in Oshtemo Township near Kalamazoo, a utility company called the Michigan Electric Transmission Company (METC) wanted to install a new electrical transmission line. In keeping with practices by now all-too-familiar, the company failed to communicate openly with local officials—despite repeated requests from township officials—and provided the township with very little information about the project, including about things as basic as routing. Unable to obtain precise information from METC and undertandably concerned about its natural resources, the township then passed an ordinance requiring the transmission line to be buried underground where it passes through the village. METC ignored this ordinance and applied for a certificate from the MPSC anyway.
On the question of the compliance with the ordinance, the Administrative Law Judge in the case sided with Oshtemo Township. The MPSC, however, disagreed with the ALJ and insisted that their own decision effectively overrode the authority of the Oshtemo ordinance. Here is what the MPSC said:
The Staff argues that the purpose of the Oshtemo ordinance was to usurp Commission authority and create an obstacle to the construction of the project. The Staff reiterates its opposition to enforcement and further disagrees with the ALJ’s recommendation that the Commission condition the CPCN on a requirement that METC underground a portion of its line as required by the ordinance.
Note that the Commission’s primary concern is with its own “authority,” not the will of the people (of Osthemo Township), the legitimacy of statutes passed by democratically elected officials, nor the protection of the township’s natural resources. Sound familiar?
So this week, the Michigan Supreme Court heard the township’s appeal on this matter (which was supported, it’s worth noting, by the Michigan Townships Association, which certainly understood the stakes of the matter) and sided with the MPSC. What that means is that a few—and I mean literally a few: THREE, to be precise—unelected, industry-friendly regulators who, history shows, have very little interest in actually regulating the behaviors and actions of large companies like METC (and Enbridge and Energy Transfer) or in protecting the citizens they are ostensibly appointed to serve get to dictate energy and right-of-way policy over and above the actions of elected officials in every single community across the state. You tell me who’s doing the usurping here.
Of course, it’s also the case that not every decision made by a duly elected legislative body is a good one. In fact, the Michigan legislature seems to excel and making abominable decisions. Which brings me to the second bad news of the week. The state House of Representatives just passed HB 4205, which is unoffically called the “no stricter than federal” bill. The bill’s foolish idea—and believe me, I know this sounds absurd— is to prohibit state regulatory agencies from making any rules that are stricter than already existing federal regulations. This is transparently idiotic, since federal regulations, weak and ineffectual as they tend to be, do not account for local conditions. How could they? Yet Michigan state legislators want to make it harder, not easier, for state-specific regulations—regulations that might help protect the state’s thousands of miles of coastline, its freshwater resources—to be enacted. It’s as if no Republican member of the state House (no Democrats voted for the bill) has ever heard of, say, Flint. Or petcoke.
What’s worse is that the House already tried this— six years ago. But back then even Governor Snyder thought it was a bad idea and vetoed the bill. Yet here it is again. I have already written to my representative, Joe Graves, expressing my great disappointment in his vote for this terrible legislation. And I’ll be writing to my state senator and the Governor as well. I encourage you to do the same.
by Jeffrey Insko | May 6, 2017
We’re back! We’ve got a spiffy new look, a new mission (details below), and starting right now in this very sentence I’m even dropping, for good, the rhetorical first person plural. Yep, things have changed during the eighteen or so months this blog has been dormant.
Among those changes, in case you haven’t heard, is that Line 6B is evidently no longer Line 6B. With no real explanation, Enbridge recently decided to start calling it Line 78. It’s not altogether clear why, though I suspect they saw this in part as an opportunity for some re-branding—you know, on account of the spotty reputation of Line 6B— maybe even a continuation of their project to obscure the history they love to say, sometimes with creepy tokens, they’ll never forget. But just because they’ve chosen a new name doesn’t mean we have to use it— no more than we have to comply with their misleading, ahistorical insistence that “oil sands” is the “accurate” term for the filthy stuff dug up from the ground in Alberta and flowing through the pipeline in my backyard as I type this. So you can rest assured that I plan on keeping the name “Line 6B Citizens’ Blog.”
But that doesn’t mean nothing around here is changing. After all, for most Line 6B landowners, the long, torturous construction saga known as the Line 6B “replacement” project ended almost two years ago— and with it ended some of the urgent necessity of this blog. It’s been a while since Enbridge finally packed up its monstrous tree-eating machines, its backhoes, its welding rigs, and its pack of scurrilous, lying land agents and headed north so it could commence destroying properties, suing municipalities, and buying off politicians in Minnesota and Wisconsin. All of which they are doing, of course, aided and abetted by the Department of Justice, which turned what should have been a sharp rebuke and deterrent to Enbridge’s standard operating procedures into a rather large gift. So as long as Enbridge continues to get its way, why change its behavior?
Not all the news of the past eighteen months has been bad, though. The movement to shut down Line 5, those two rickety old pipes traversing the Straits of Mackinac, has grown beyond what anyone ever could have expected. More and more citizens, members of the business community, clergy, and even some (unlikely) politicians have begun to take seriously the dangers that aging line poses to the world’s largest source of fresh water. Another positive development is the courageous action taken by the Bad River Band of of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa in Wisconsin. In order to protect the sensitive natural resources that sustain the tribe’s fishing and hunting lifeways, the Bad River tribal council voted not to renew Enbridge’s lease to operate Line 5 on tribal land. And there has been good news from Minnesota as well, where, thanks to a lawsuit filed by our friends at the Friends of the Headwaters, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that Enbridge must complete a full Environmental Impact Statement for its proposed pipeline expansions (one of which appears to be dead).
Developments like these hardly seemed possible when I started this blog in 2012. Grass roots movements against pipelines in the U.S., with one major exception, didn’t occupy anywhere near the space in public consciousness they inhabit today (which isn’t to say that nothing was brewing five years ago). Save for some talented reporters at a scrappy upstart online newspaper, Line 6B certainly wasn’t on many people’s radar, as my wife and I learned to our deep dismay when we tried to contact Michigan elected officials about the “replacement project.” Nor had many people heard of Line 5, Pegasus, the Alberta Clipper, Line 3, Dakota Access, Nexus, ET Rover, Northeast Energy Direct. LNG, or Trans Mountain— not to mention PHMSA and FERC.
The movements to resist each of these projects originated in local, even hyperlocal, concerns— call it NIMBYism if you want. But another change is that these movements are no longer so confined. They now form distinct nodes in a transnational network of efforts to exert local autonomy and authority against the onslaught of an energy infrastructure development beast running completely amok, virtually unconstrained by the state and federal agencies charged with protecting the public interest. Even more broadly, these movements have come to represent some of the most important and most visible sites of citizen action in response to the urgencies of climate change and the energy future.
A good deal of credit for this shift in public awareness about the relationship between local concerns like property rights and global concerns like climate change, forged by bringing fossil fuel transport aboveground (so to speak), is due to Bold Nebraska and the alliances they formed—between cowboys and Indians, ranchers and climate activists—to fight against Keystone XL. More recently, similar movements led by indigenous peoples like the Standing Rock Sioux water protectors in North Dakota have helped bring to light some further historical and ethical dimensions of this nexus, like the legacy of settler colonialism and important questions about climate justice, since indigenous and other poor populations will suffer most from the effects of climate change.
Admittedly, all of these matters weren’t foremost in my mind when I started this blog. The pain of witnessing the destruction of my property and a desire to see my neighbors and other property owners treated fairly motivated my efforts. The generosity and vast knowledge provided by the Pipeline Safety Trust aided those efforts immeasurably while also expanding my understanding of pipeline politics beyond my homefront. From there, my academic training led me to seek out not just resources for dealing with pipeline issues but also contexts and intellectual frameworks within which to understand and think through the broader social, political, and historical dimensions of what was happening in my backyard and the backyards of my neighbors. Those contexts and frameworks, inspired by the writings, conversations, friendships, and exchanges I’ve had with with scholars, activists, advocates, artists, ordinary citizens, and even members of the fossil fuel industry—will form the basis of the reinvented (and reinvigorated) Line 6B Citizens’ Blog.
In the academic world, scholars of literature (like me), history, anthropology, philosophy, political science and other fields who are bringing their disciplinary training to bear upon the cultural implications of our long love affair with (or addiction to?) hydrocarbons, climate change, ecology, environmental justice, energy policy, the nonhuman world, and more have created a broad, loosely defined field of study known as the Environmental Humanities. The kind of inquiry that animates the Environmental Humanities, almost by definition, takes up ethical questions, matters of public policy, and subjects of pressing real-world concern. For that reason, many EH scholars are eager for opportunities to engage with audiences and publics outside of the (sometimes too narrow) academic sphere—something I learned when I collaborated with my Oakland University colleagues to organize a climate change symposium at our campus. It’s my hope that the new Line 6B Citizens’ Blog can provide an ongoing forum for this kind of public engagement and, even better, for building a community comprised of groups of people that don’t always get the chance to communicate with one another.
All of this means I’ll mostly feature other voices on this blog from now on. I’ve asked some of the smartest and most interesting thinkers I know— many, but not all, of them Environmental Humanities scholars— to help keep this blog alive. And I hope to recruit others as well. Of course, I promise I won’t stop reporting on Enbridge. Nor will I cease to do whatever I can to help protect landowners and the environment from their latest shenanigans. But I’m also eager to let others have this platform for a while to explore issues that extend beyond (but also extend very much from) what has happened with Enbridge here in Michigan. I hope, loyal readers, that you’ll stick around. We all have much to learn from one another.
We’re going to kick things off with a brand new series centered upon a theme near and dear to all of us along Line 6B: “Backyards.” That series will launch very soon—and I am very excited about it. Please stay tuned.
by Jeffrey Insko | May 3, 2017 |
As many of you know, postcards from Enbridge have been arriving in the mail this week announcing a “Community Meeting.” In fact, Enbridge is (has been) holding a number of these meetings around the region this spring (details below). Understandably, this has people wondering and wary as to what Enbridge might be up to now. We’ve received queries from a number of people and also heard rumors of various sorts. So we just wanted to take a minute to set the record straight about these meetings.
You may recall that last summer, Enbridge finally reached a settlement with the Department of Justice for the Marshall spill. At that time, we expressed our deep disappointment in that settlement, which is shockingly favorable to Enbridge’s interest. In our view, it amounts to a reward, in fact, rather than a punishment.
At any rate, among the many directives in the Consent Decree outlining the details of the settlement (which you can read here) is a requirement that Enbridge perform “Community Outreach.” Here is what the decree says:
In addition to the above exercises, Enbridge shall conduct or hire a contractor to conduct Community Outreach sessions regarding the hazards of the different oils in the Lakehead System and the location of Enbridge pipelines in the community and how such pipelines are marked. Specifically, within one year of the Effective Date, and for each year thereafter until the Decree is terminated, Enbridge shall hold at least 15 Community Outreach Sessions in 15 different communities where the Lakehead System is located. Enbridge shall also provide information at the Community Outreach sessions regarding: (i) how the community should respond in the event of a spill, (ii) how the community can obtain information in the event of a spill from Enbridge and government agencies, and (iii) how the community can report spills to Enbridge, EPA, and the National Response Center. (116.e., p. 115)
So these meetings are nothing more than informational sessions to comply with the DoJ order. They are apt to be rather boring– though you can be sure that we’ll be attending to find out. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see whether Enbridge has anything to say about “the hazards of the different oils in the Lakehead System” or whether they’ll just try to tell us once again how much the products they transport enhance our lives.
Here are the remaining meetings (a couple of others have already been held), with dates, times, and locations. Registration appears to be required.
Stockbridge, MI
Tue, May 9, 2017
Community Outreach Session: 6:00 pm
Heritage Elementary School
222 Western Ave,
Stockbridge, MI 49285
Clarkston, MI
Wed, May 10, 2017
Community Outreach Session: 6:00 pm
Deer Lake Athletic Club
6167 White Lake Rd,
Village of Clarkston, MI 48346
Port Huron, MI
Thu, May 11, 2017
Community Outreach Session: 6:00 pm
McMorran Place
701 McMorran Blvd.
Port Huron , MI 48060
One final word: we know the blog has been dormant for a while as we’ve been attending to other things. But we’re planning a comeback– or more precisely, a reinvention. Please stay tuned for the relaunch coming very soon!
by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 1, 2016 |
As we reported last week, the Department of Justice and Enbridge have reached finally reached a settlement in the Marshall spill. For reasons we described in our post, we don’t think the settlement is at all satisfactory. And we’re not alone. In an excellent Smart Pig blog post, Rebecca Craven of the Pipeline Safety Trust also outlines some of the areas where the settlement appears to fall short. Our own view is that, in many ways, the settlement is quite advantageous to Enbridge.
However, there is one bit of good news in the settlement that we neglected to mention: it clearly prohibits Enbridge from ever re-using the original Line 6B. You might recall that this is something many of us in Michigan asked for repeatedly prior to construction of the new Line. But Enbridge always hedged. Now, that line will be decommissioned permanently, which is very good news indeed. Of course, even that injunction is less than ideal: it should have been part of the terms of approval of the new line and Enbridge should have been required to remove it, rather than leaving it in the ground.
Which brings us back to the consent decree. You see, as we mentioned in our last post, the proposed settlement contains a number of provisions relating to Enbridge’s Line 3 project in Minnesota, a project that might well induce in Michiganders a terrifying sense of déjà vu. Like Line 6B, Line 3 is old and deteriorating. The consent decree requires Enbridge to replace it and decommission the original Line 3. But this is in no way an onerous requirement for Enbridge and it certainly isn’t punishment. That’s because Enbridge already planned to “replace” the line. But as with Line 6B, they aren’t really “replacing” the line. Instead, they’re building a brand new one—an even bigger one—and they want to build it in a different location. Yes, you read that correctly: a larger diameter pipeline in a different location. To call that a replacement is an abuse of language. It’s also a very clever way of skirting the requirements of their presidential permit for that line—a replay of their Line 6B strategy.
But the Line 3 boondoggle is even worse than the Line 6B replacement. That’s because the consent decree does not require the permanent decommissioning of the original Line 3. Instead, it lays out a number of conditions that would allow Enbridge to continue to operate it. That’s deeply troubling. If that line is going to be decommissioned, we agree with our friends in Minnesota that it should be taken out of the ground, just as should have been done with Line 3 (in fact, you can support their efforts by signing this petition). But instead, the settlement leaves open the possibility of allowing Enbridge to operate both a new Line 3 in a new location and the old Line 3. As a result, Enbridge, cunningly, seems to have negotiated an agreement with the Department of Justice that essentially rewards them for the costliest inland oil spill in U.S. history.
But here’s the (potentially) good news: the settlement is not yet final. The public has 30 days to comment on it. We urge you to do so. In particular, we urge you to ask the DoJ to remove the Line 3 provisions altogether. After all, what do those things have to do with affairs in Michigan in the first place? You might also encourage DoJ to file criminal charges and to require Supplemental Environmental Projects that could benefit Michigan. Lastly, you might ask for some tougher requirements with regard to Line 5. Instead of giving them tacit permission to continue to operate those lines, Enbridge should have to generate a plan to shut down and remove those dangerous pipelines from beneath the Straits of Mackinac once and for all.
For more reasons you should oppose the Line 3 project and helpful links for commenting on the consent decree, visit this page from our friends at Honor the Earth.
by Jeffrey Insko | Jul 25, 2016 |
We’re back from our period of dormancy to mark the sixth anniversary of the Marshall spill. (Yes, despite what Enbridge says, today is the anniversary!).
By now you have probably heard the news: last week the Department of Justice, at long last, has announced penalties against Enbridge for the devastating Marshall spill. Why it took six full years and why the penalties were a matter of negotiation, we will never understand. But setting that aside, we’ve got a few things to say about the substance of the so-called “settlement”:
First, you probably read that Enbridge has been “hit with a $177 million bill” or some such. Everybody seems to be seizing upon this $177 million figure, even those who have been most outspoken or dogged in documenting Enbridge’s misdeeds. But don’t believe it. Enbridge was not hit with a $177 million dollar bill. The DoJ levied a $61 million civil penalty— for violations of the Clean Water Act. They were also “hit” with another $1 million for another spill. And they are required to pay back another $5 million to the Oil Spill Liability Fund, which they drew from during the cleanup.
So why is everybody saying $177 million? Well, it’s because Enbridge and DoJ estimate that it’s going to cost Enbridge an additional $110 million to comply with a number of provisions in the settlement, many of them having to do with safety tests of their pipeline network and others having to do with repairs and other costs.
But it’s a real stretch to pretend that money is some sort of penalty. After all, most of what the DoJ is requiring of Enbridge— hydrotests to assess the conditions of their pipelines, for instance— is stuff you’d expect them to be doing anyway. It’s the normal cost of operating pipelines.
Even worse, probably the largest chunk of that $110 million has to do with the replacement of Line 3, an aging pipeline Enbridge operates which runs from Neche, North Dakota to Superior, Wisconsin, which the consent decree requires. Trouble is, replacing that line is something Enbridge is already planning to do. So it’s a capital investment they are making anyway (or so they have hoped), regardless of what DoJ said.
Which brings us to our second point: as a provision in this settlement, the replacement of Line 3 is not a penalty. It’s a gift. In fact, it’s great news for Enbridge.
We told you a bit about Line 3 a long time ago. That proposed “replacement” project is an even greater boondoggle than the “replacement” of Line 6b was. That’s because Enbridge’s proposed route for the new Line 3 doesn’t even follow the same route as the original Line 3. It’s not a “replacement,” it’s new infrastructure. Enbridge wants to put that line in the same corridor as the proposed Sandpiper pipeline— a route that, as our friends at the Friends of the Headwaters know very well, is totally bonkers, as it threatens some of the most environmentally sensitive areas in the state.
Even worse, the route for the newly proposed Line 3 is identical to the route of the Sandpiper pipeline, which, frankly put, is just plain crazy. Our friends at the Friends of the Headwaters have explained why repeatedly— and convincingly.
So here’s the problem with the DoJ provision: it may well be that Line 3, an aging pipeline, needs to be replaced (just as Line 6b did). But that fact does not mean that Enbridge ought to get to do whatever it wants, however it wants. But that’s going to be exactly what happens now. Enbridge will use that provision as a cudgel to beat any sort of questions or opposition to that project into submission. Any questions anybody asks Enbridge about the Line 3 replacement (such as its route) are going to be met with “we’re legally obligated to do this according to the Department of Justice, so just shut up.” Essentially, that provision gives Enbridge’s Line 3 plans federal blessing.
The third problem with the settlement is the failure of the DoJ to file any kind of criminal charges. Here it’s worth remembering some basic facts (all readily available in the NTSB report from 2011): Enbridge knew about defects in Line 6b for five years, but chose to do nothing about them. For years, Enbridge fostered a “culture of deviance” from its own safety protocols, which directly contributed to the Marshall disaster. As if that’s not bad enough, Enbridge’s control room operators knew there was a problem with Line 6b SEVENTEEN HOURS before shutting the pipeline down.
Letting Enbridge off the criminal hook is a slap in the face to the families whose lives were ruined by Enbridge’s documented negligence. Here we’ll just quote our friend Susan Connolly:
“Six years have passed with questions unanswered and concerns remain,” Susan Connolly, a local Michigan mother whose children suffered rashes as a result of the Kalamazoo spill, said in a statement. “The fines related to the Clean Water Act should not be in the form of a ‘settlement’ discussed and agreed to between the agencies and the at fault party. The maximum penalty should be ordered, criminal penalties assessed, and a Michigan Pipeline Trust created.”
Fourth, the feds missed an opportunity to make some lasting good out of this disaster. It is common in cases like this one, where businesses reach settlements with the feds for failures to comply with environmental laws, to create what are called Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEP), which are designed to help protect the environment. In a state as reliant on its marvelous natural resources, it is frankly shocking that the settlement included no SEPs of any kind. This is a travesty.
Finally, the settlement includes a whole bunch of provisions related to Line 5. Mostly, these have to do with conducting tests to assess the condition of the lines and repairing any defects or problems with the pipelines’ supports or coverage. On the face of it, these seem like good measures (although, again, these are things Enbridge ought to be doing already). But as with Line 3, these provisions simply give Enbridge federal cover. In this case, cover to continue operating those lines indefinitely, when nearly everybody— even those whose judgement is generally suspect— now recognizes that those lines ought to be shut down and decommissioned permanently. But now Enbridge gets to pretend like the federal government has given its approval for them to continue to operate Line 5. And, unfortunately, they’re right about that. They’ll now tell everybody that these federal mandates preempt any and all state and local authority.
As we (and plenty of others) have said repeatedly, the Marshall spill was not just an accident. It was not an honest mistake. It was the result of systemic problems and preventable actions. Those problems and actions destroyed properties, uprooted families, affected individuals’ health in ways we still don’t even understand. The DoJ’s consent decree does not even come close to redressing those actions; it certainly won’t do anything to deter Enbridge from continuing to operate as it always has. Quite the contrary: given the modesty of the penalty and the friendly Line 3 and Line 5 provisions, the consent decree, six years in the making, rewards Enbridge’s behavior.
by Jeffrey Insko | Jul 20, 2016 |
After six long years of negotiations—yes, we said negotiations!–the Department of Justice will announce fines against Enbridge for the Marshall spill. The news is almost certain to be infuriated. We’ll have more to say after the announcement and the Enbridge p.r. stunt that follows.
Here’s the Freep story announcing the pending announcement.
by Jeffrey Insko | Sep 22, 2015 |
Many long time readers of this blog are aware that we keep a side gig teaching American literature at Oakland University. Over the past several months, we’ve been collaborating with a couple of our magnificent colleagues to organize an exciting event to which we’d like to invite you: a one day symposium on climate change we’re calling “Climate Literacies: Reading the Anthropocene.”
The symposium will bring together scholars from the humanities and sciences, conservationists, leaders of Michigan environmental organizations, activists, and advocates for environmental justice to talk about politics, scholarship, the arts, the ecology of the Great Lakes, and the implications of climate change for Michigan and beyond. And don’t worry, Enbridge is sure to get a mention!
The event will take place October 15, starting, from 9 am-7 pm in the Oakland Room of the Oakland Center on the campus of Oakland University.
The symposium will begin with an address by the University of Michigan’s Henry Pollack, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and author of A World Without Ice. It will conclude with a keynote address titled “Love and Death in the Anthropocene” by the brilliant and innovative literary scholar Dana Luciano of Georgetown University.
In between, we’ll have lots of conversation and fascinating presentations featuring, among others, some friends we’ve made here at the blog as well as others whose work we’ve long admired. In addition to OU faculty, including our co-organizers, Professors Andrea Knutson and Hunter Vaughan, symposium participants are:
- Nadia Bozak, novelist and Assistant Professor of English at Carleton University; her most recent novel is El Niño.
- Tom Baird, President, Anglers of the Au Sable
- Liz Kirkwood, Executive Director, For Love of Water
- Anne Vaara, Executive Director, Clinton River Watershed Council
- William Copeland, Climate Justice Director, East Michigan Environmental Council
- Jake McGraw, Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands
- Mackenzie Maxwell, Environmental Educator, Ecology, Center Ann Arbor
- Stephanie Foote, Professor of English and Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Illinois and Co-Editor of Resilience: A Journal of Environmental Humanities
- Janet Fiskio, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies & Comparative American Studies, Oberlin College
- Denise Keele, Associate Professor of Political Science and Environmental and Sustainability Studies, Western Michigan University
- Margaret A. Crouch, Professor, Department of Philosophy and Program for Interdisciplinary Environmental Science and Society, Eastern Michigan University
- Ted Toadvine, Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies, University of Oregon and editor-in-chief of Environmental Philosophy
The event is free and open to the public. Please join us– and bring your friends!
by Jeffrey Insko | Jul 6, 2015 |
In addition to a vast network of oil and gas pipelines in the Great Lakes region, Enbridge owns and operates several state legislatures. Wisconsin is its latest acquisition.
